"Forgetfulness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... throne Kindled between them, with resentment fired That Oeneus had not in some fertile spot The first fruits of his harvest set apart 665 To her; with hecatombs he entertained All the Divinities of heaven beside, And her alone, daughter of Jove supreme, Or through forgetfulness, or some neglect, Served not; omission careless and profane! 670 She, progeny of Jove, Goddess shaft-arm'd, A savage boar bright-tusk'd in anger sent, Which haunting Oeneus' fields much havoc made. Trees numerous on the earth ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... irresistible twinkle to his great merry eyes, it was no wonder Gypsy was proud of him, as indeed she certainly was, nor did she hesitate to tell him so twenty times a day. This was a treatment of which Tom decidedly approved. Exactly how beneficial it was to the growth within him of modesty, self-forgetfulness, and the passive virtues ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... in a home where rude gestures, or ill-tempered words are unknown, where truthfulness, kindliness, forgetfulness of self and careful consideration of others, permeates the very atmosphere, and they will go forth into the world armed with the integrity in which all men may trust, the polish that will win them admiration, and the true refinement that will render ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... except its spirit—the power that did it—the power that makes being told how to do it uncalled for, the power that asks and answers its "Hows?" for itself. The serene powerlessness of it all, without courage or passion or conviction, without self-discovery in it, or self-forgetfulness or beauty in it, or for one moment the great contagion of the great, is one of the saddest sights in this ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... Chief Bridesmaid occupies a place immediately behind the bride, to hold her gloves and handkerchief, and flowers; her companions range themselves close to, and slightly in the rear of the principal bridesmaid. If any difficulties occur from forgetfulness, or want of knowledge, the woman who is usually in attendance at the church can ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... street only the day before. The sight of this person she had always found offensive, and now, she felt, in view of what she had just learned, it must be even more so. Never, while this woman lived in the town, would she be able to throw the veil of forgetfulness over this blot upon ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... become too frequent to produce much sensation, and was set down as a common risk of colonial life. When they heard that a servant was speared, they would exclaim, "Ah! is he killed? poor fellow!"—and having brought in a verdict of wilful murder, they left him to the forgetfulness ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... walls, her walls are where her men are. Better to call back the army than to follow them. What if the Persian bores through mountains, makes the sea invisible? Such proud felicity never yet stood sure; the loftiest exaltation is struck to earth through its forgetfulness of the instability of all things human. You may be sure that power which has given rise to envy has not seen its last phase. It has changed seas, lands, nature itself; let us three hundred die, if only that ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... when Agag was murdered, and it was always before his eyes that he was doomed, and that there was another man in the land, who was to rule in his stead. I tried to appease him. I told him that life to all of us is short, that in the grave there is forgetfulness, and bade him drink wine, lie in my bosom, and shut out the morrow, but it was of no avail. There was nothing to be dreaded in the thought that some one would supplant him, and other men would have endured it in peace; but it was the constant presence of the thought, the impossibility ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... began to flow into the cottages, and young and old rushed to Ffynnon Gower, which they realised was the cause of their distress. There they saw a great stream of water gushing upward. In their anger they called upon the negligent guardian, but he, seeing the harm that had come of his forgetfulness, had fled, though it is said he did not escape the angry waters, for they overtook him ...
— Legend Land, Vol. 1 • Various
... astir, and with a great start he recognized the rain on the roof. It was coming down in steady torrents that made the house rock before the tumult of his plunging heart was still, and he was longing again for the forgetfulness of sleep. In vain. The hours dragged by; the windows slowly, slowly denned their dull gray squares against the dull gray day dawning without. The walls that had been left with only the first dark coat of plaster, awaiting another season for the final decoration, showed their drapings ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... unreal. It is vain to torment our hearts by thinking." So they lock away his photographs and letters, and they gradually, reluctantly let him drop out of their conversation and their prayers, and, as far as possible, out of their thoughts, trusting sadly in the healing influence of time and forgetfulness to quiet the aching questions in their hearts. Ah! ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... writing down thoughts and facts for the purpose of holding them fast and preventing their escape into the dim region of forgetfulness, has been much resorted to by thoughtful and studious men. Lord Bacon left behind him many manuscripts entitled "Sudden thoughts set down for use." Erskine made great extracts from Burke; and Eldon copied Coke upon Littleton twice over with his own hand, so that the book became, as it ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... joy, no gleam of the experiences which the traveller brought back with him from that 'bourne' whence he had come. Surely some draught of Lethe must have been given him, that his spirit might be lulled into a wholesome forgetfulness, else life must have ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... said to Joseph; but come with me and I'll tell thee much about him. No better shepherd than he ever ranged the hills. I wouldn't have thee forget, mate, another man said, that he's gone without leaving us his great cure for scab. True for thee, mate, answered the first, for a great forgetfulness has been on him this time past.... A great cure, certainly, which he might have left us. And the twain fell to discussing their several cures for scab. Another shepherd came by and passed the remark that Jesus knew ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... bringing in its train the stagnation of nations, and hampering them in that march to the unknown which we call "progress." But such an attitude shows not only an absolute ignorance of the teaching of the Prophet, but a blind forgetfulness of the evidence of history. The Islam of the earlier centuries evolved and progressed with the nations, and the stimulus it gave to men in the reign of the ancient caliphs is beyond all question. To impute ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... and despicable passions which so often usurp its name. "Love," it has been said, "in the common acceptation of the term, is folly; but love, in its purity, its loftiness, its unselfishness, is not only a consequence, but a proof, of our moral excellence. The sensibility to moral beauty, the forgetfulness of self in the admiration engendered by it, all prove its claim to a high moral influence. It is the triumph of the unselfish over the selfish part ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... a beauty that is always present to hear her-self flattered, is flattered by every one. But the absent and silent goddess, Forgetfulness, has no votaries, and is never thought of: yet we owe her much. She is the goddess of ease, though not ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... can seem to see so much as this," the old lady went on after a pause. "The Lord won't have folk to settle down accordin' to their will into a contented forgetfulness o' him; so he won't let there be peace till the King o' Peace comes. O, I'd be glad ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... the divorced must ever be reckoned with when dance and dinner lists are made out, there is always some thoughtless hostess—and sometimes a mischievous one; and the chances were that he and Mrs. Jack Ruthven would collide, either through the forgetfulness or malice of somebody or, through sheer hazard, at some large affair where Destiny and Fate work busily together in ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... knock," said Nealie in a choked tone, and then was instantly sorry for what she had said, remembering that but for Rumple's forgetfulness there might have been no ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... said, not with any idea of insulting the red-skin on the score of his beauty, of which he possessed not the smallest particle, but in total forgetfulness that our guest understood English. Never shall I forget the red flash of that fierce dark eye as it glared upon my unconscious brother. I would not have received such a fiery glance for all the wealth that Peter Jones obtained with his Saxon bride. John Nogan was highly amused ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... for the glowing glories of the planet, seemed to be beguiled into comparative forgetfulness of the charms of his comet; but no astronomical enthusiasm of the professor could quite allay the general apprehension that some serious collision might ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... It is the forgetfulness of this psychological law which stultifies the so-called liberal Christianity. It is the realization of it which constitutes the strength ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the American jazz music boomed and whanged its syncopation. On the music racks of violinists who had meant to be Elmans or Kreislers were sheets entitled Jazz Baby Fox Trot. Drums, horns, cymbals, castanets, sandpaper. So the mannequins and marionettes of Europe tried to whirl themselves into forgetfulness. ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... On the Sabbath he went to the synagogue, and was called up to read in the Law. The elders came to shake him by the hand; a wave of emotion traversed the congregation. Uriel, mentally blinking at all this novel sunshine, had moments of forgetfulness of his sardonic hypocrisy, thrilled to be in touch with humanity again, and moved by its forgiving good-will. The half-circle of almond and lemon trees from Portugal, planted in gaily-painted tubs before the Holy Ark, swelled his breast with tender, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... your realm." He turned on his heel, and I followed him out of the room after making a brief salutation to the old man, cowering among his cushions, a ceremony which Isaacs omitted, whether intentionally or from forgetfulness, I could not say. We passed through the house out into the air, and mounting our horses rode away, leaving the double row of servants salaaming to the ground. The duration of our private interview with the maharajah had given them an immense idea of our importance. We had come at four ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... imagined either of them saying to the other: "Here's a funny thing! The house is on fire!" And then yielding to laughter as they ran for buckets. Mrs Brindley, in particular, laughed now; she gazed at the table-cloth and laughed almost silently to herself; though it appeared that their joint forgetfulness might result in temporary estrangement from a venerable ancestor who was also, birthdays being duly observed, a continual fount of rich presents ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... strong as ever, but less self-reliant. Experience had taught her that she was powerless to fight alone. In her worst battles, she had learned that she must rely upon another; and Thayer, as he watched her, rejoiced that that other was himself. His weeks of separation from her, of enforced forgetfulness, had taught him a lesson which he had been loath to learn. Rather than be outside her world, rather than be upon the same footing as all the other inhabitants of that world, he would gladly endure a strain like that of the past summer, would ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... Freeman's statement the period was before his appointment to be Legal Member of Council in India, and long before he had begun to write his History of England. The most charitable explanation of an erroneous statement is usually the correct one, and it was probably forgetfulness which made Freeman say that he did not hear of Froude's having placed copies of the Simancas manuscripts in the British Museum till 1878, whereas he had himself discussed it in The Pall Mall Gazette eight ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... finally she walked along by his side firmly to where they had stood the night before. With seeming intention Morris tried to take his place beside her, but Miss Earle, quietly folding her cloak around her, stood on the opposite side of the flagpole, and, as if there should be no forgetfulness on his part, she reached up her hand and laid it ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... was in as great need of employment as the poorest little seamstress on her list. So she interested her in her charities, drawing her by degrees into the active work of them until her unhappy little niece had learned the beautiful gospel of self-forgetfulness. Afterward, when mother was married and had the happiness of her five daughters at heart, she induced each one of us to take up something of absorbing interest, in order that there might be no empty, idle days when ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... recollection that Windle Bent had an old school-friend, a young barrister from London, staying with him, and that both had been asked to supper that evening at Cotherstone's house. But Cotherstone's annoyance was not because of his own forgetfulness, but because his present abstraction made him dislike the ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... hand for a dance, and afterwards stand up with another partner, you will do well to attribute her error to either forgetfulness or ignorance of the laws of etiquette. Politeness towards your host and hostess demands that you should never make any little personal grievance the ground ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... Denham, gravely. "I forget it all the time. Indeed, the forgetfulness has quite become chronic. Now I'll find Olly, and we'll all go at the dishes together and ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... crowd rushes on, with plenty of kinetic force, making noise enough and looking very busy; while those who seem to sleep in calm forgetfulness, exercise their potential energy, and do the real work of turning the great engine of ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... therefore, who is still to live undiscovered hath appeared before us. And if Vibhatsu hath come before the term of exile is at end, the Pandavas shall have to pass another twelve years in the woods. Whether it is due to forgetfulness (on their part) induced by desire of dominion, or whether it is a mistake of ours, it behoveth Bhishma to calculate the shortness or excess (of the promised period). When an object of desire may or may not be attained, a doubt necessarily attaches to one of the alternatives, and what is ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... she called shrilly. Her voice held something of the awe with which remoter regions still regard that method of communication. But there was a stronger emotion still that thus sent the old woman dancing in forgetfulness of her chronic pains. It was explained in her next sentence, cried out with a mother's exultation in the homecoming of her beloved. Almost, in joy over seeing her son again, she forgot the misery that ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... enjoined revenge, and stigmatized the forgiveness of insults; in others it imperiously commanded men to conquer their own passions, and imposed forgetfulness of self. It did not make humanity or kindness its law, but it extolled generosity; it set more store on liberality than on benevolence; it allowed men to enrich themselves by gambling or by war, but not by labor; it ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... Plautus' frequent forgetfulness of his Greek environment and the interjection of Roman references—what De Quincey calls "anatopism"—is another item of careless composition too well known to need more than passing mention. The ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... the progress of fortune is rapid. Such is the case when, either on merit or demerit, great patronage is bestowed. Henry's violin had often charmed, to a welcome forgetfulness of his insignificance, an effeminate lord; or warmed with ideas of honour the head of a duke, whose heart could never be taught to feel its manly glow. Princes had flown to the arms of their favourite fair ones ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... cases, a state of direct debility prevails, attended with a morbidly accumulated excitability; hence, those remedies afford relief, which produce a quick exhaustion of this principle, and thus blunt the feelings, and lull the mind into some degree of forgetfulness of its woes. Hence opium, tobacco, and the fetid gums are often resorted to; and in the hands of a judicious practitioner, they will afford great relief, provided he carefully watch the patient, and prevent their abuse; for, if left to the discretion of the patient, he finds that kind ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... so clear about that, but there was no use in complaining, so I at once threw myself into the berth, and in a minute was in happy forgetfulness ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... he thought, "and God knows we never sought it." And again the thought: "When I offered to serve my country, I offered my life. I am willing to die, but this is not a way of my choosing," and a blessed, forgetfulness came upon him again. ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... however, so far from becoming clearer, grew gradually more confused and intricate; and as frequent references were made by the lady to some previous statement, Calvert was more than once rebuked for forgetfulness and inattention, where in reality nothing less than short-hand could ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... and vegetables, our seasons and harvests; our Alphabet and method of writing, adapted to our linear tablets; these and a hundred other details of our physical existence I must pass over, nor do I mention them now except to indicate to my readers that their omission proceeds not from forgetfulness on the part of the author, but from his regard for ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... says the utmost ill about me: this gives the greatest pleasure to that ninny. Ass, thou hast no sense! if through forgetfulness she were silent about us, it would be well: now that she snarls and scolds, not only does she remember, but what is a far bitterer thing, she is enraged. That is, she inflames herself ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... in their transactions with us. Some exceptions, for they were only exceptions, and rare ones, to this rule, have been mentioned as they occurred; but in general, however considerable the benefit conferred, it was forgotten in a day; and this forgetfulness was not unfrequently aggravated by their giving out that their benefactor had been so shabby as to make them no present at all. Even those individuals who, either from good behaviour or superior intelligence, had been most noticed by us, and particularly ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... extended his labours to our remote ancestry, learning from books that which the hoary memories of our old men scarcely retained. He drew forth from their hiding-place the Kings of the Goths, hidden by long forgetfulness. He restored the Amals in all the lustre of their lineage, evidently proving that we have Kings for our ancestors up to the seventeenth generation. He made the origin of the Goths part of Roman history, ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... God were the deep humility expressed in this prayer, the discernment of the great work that he was called to do; the earnest desire to be fitted to do it nobly and well, and the utter forgetfulness of all earthly ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... is losing ground and a better feeling springing up; but there are yet too many colonists that have felt the disabilities of Dissent in the old country who are unable to put on the armour of forgiveness, or rather of forgetfulness in the new. The enemy has lost his sting, but they will not allow him to live on the remembrance of his past greatness without a reminder of ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... calf-house. Darby and Joan slept the profound, dreamless sleep of tired childhood; the dwarf was buried in an oblivion which was as much the stupor of weakness as the blissfulness of sleep. About an hour he remained sunk in sweet forgetfulness of present danger and future difficulties. Then his big head began to bob uneasily up and down, from one side to another, until it fell upon his shoulder with a sudden jerk which only partially aroused him. ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... and dine with them. It had taken him over two months to detect Lisa's latent hostility; and even now he was sometimes inclined to think that he must be mistaken, and that she was in reality kindly disposed towards him. Unselfishness with him extended to forgetfulness of his requirements; it was no longer a virtue, but utter indifference to self, an absolute obliteration of personality. Even when he recognised that he was being gradually turned out of the house, his mind never for a moment dwelt upon his share in old Gradelle's fortune, or upon the accounts ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... striking his nose with the knuckle of his forefinger as a chastening for his forgetfulness. 'Demmit, I remember what you come for. Step this way, Nickleby; my dear, will you follow me? Ha! ha! They all follow me, Nickleby; always did, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... strength and my weakness are largely due to you. And if you want your minister to preach better, and in all ways to do his work more joyfully and faithfully, the means lie largely in your own hands. Icy indifference, ill-natured interpretations, carping criticisms, swift forgetfulness of one's words, all these things kill ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... where you ought to live. You would be happier here, I believe, than in exile. The love of it all would come back, you would never be lonely. It is the same sea which sang to you when you were a child, and to your fathers before you. It would bring you forgetfulness ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... contemplation of the objects which are here to expand thy mind and quicken the pulses of thy heart!... I will pray ye to observe how much of our positive misery originates in our idle speculations in matters of faith, and in our blind, our fearful forgetfulness of facts—our cold, heartless, and, I will say, insane indifference to visible causes of tangible evil, and visible sources of tangible happiness. Look to the walks of life, I beseech ye—look into the public prints—look into your sectarian churches—look ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... was depressed. He, too, had been interpreting Burt, and guessed his destination as he galloped away. His love for Amy was so deep that in a generous impulse of self-forgetfulness he was sorry for her, and sought to cheer her, and make what poor amends he could for Burt's absence, and all that it foreboded. "Since you don't say outright that I can't go," he said, "I think I'll venture;" and then, in a quiet, genial ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... sudden view, and asks the reason he knows not; what are those spreading streams, or who are they whose vast train fills the banks? Then lord Anchises: 'Souls, for whom second bodies are destined and due, drink at the wave of the Lethean stream the heedless water of long forgetfulness. These of a truth have I long desired to tell and shew thee face to face, and number all the generation of thy children, that so thou mayest the more rejoice with me in finding Italy.'—'O father, must we think that any ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... enlightened by reflection; who have forecast what they may have to endure, and prepared themselves accordingly. It is true even of these, when they are called into action, that they necessarily lose sight of their own accomplishments and support their conflicts in self-forgetfulness and humility. That species of happy ignorance, which is the consequence of these noble qualities, must exist still more frequently, and in a greater degree, in those persons to whom duty has never been matter of laborious speculation, and who have no intimations of the power to act and ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... to thee that such reckless movement is the result of much trouble; that she seeketh forgetfulness?' He knew that she was speaking truly; and somehow the conviction was borne upon him that she knew his secret heart, and was appealing to it. If it was about Stephen! If her disquiet was about her; then God bless her! He would be patient and grateful. The Quaker's voice seemed ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... patiently and pleased, to this learned dissertation. For he is rejoiced to perceive, that the thoughts of his young companion are beginning to find some abstraction and forgetfulness, of that upon which they have been so long sadly dwelling. Cypriano, too, appears to take an interest in the subject of discourse; and to encourage it the ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... the first time in all my life, I had taken pain to be the companion of my soul. All my efforts to find Lola were fruitless. I became acquainted with the heartache, the longing for the unattainable, the agony of spirit. The only anodyne was a forgetfulness of self, the only compensation a glimmer of a hope and the shadow of a smile in the grey and leaden ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... Whether they lived or died was nothing to David; whether he himself lived or died was still less to him—except, perhaps, that in his own case he had a preference. But work is the only real sedative for grief, and the suffering man worked himself callous, so he had dull moments of forgetfulness, or at any rate of comparative indifference, Yet when he received that note from Mrs. Maitland summoning him to her hotel he flinched under the callousness. However, at a little before eight o'clock on Tuesday morning, he ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... quite enough in our thoughts: we are not too reluctant to admit that we are what we seem to be, dependent for good or evil on circumstances which we do not make for ourselves. This dependence is in itself, no doubt, a fact; but it ceases to be so for us when we contemplate it in forgetfulness of that spring of potential freedom which underlies it, and of the law of duty correlative to freedom. To the exclusive consideration of it we owe those profitless recipes for eliciting moral health from circumstances which are the plague of modern literature, ...
— An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times • Thomas Hill Green
... line, find himself in opposition to and not with me; and I am free to admit that with regard to poetry one's preferences change according to the mood one happens to be in and to the conditions generally. At home in murky London on most days I should probably seek pleasure and forgetfulness in Browning; but in such surroundings as I have been describing the lighter-hearted, elf-like Melendez accords best with my spirit, one whose finest songs are without human interest; who is irresponsible as the wind, and as unstained with earthly care as the limpid running water ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... affairs of his family as something seldom to be shared, even with an intimate friend. Of individual women we hear and see little in Athens, but of NOBLE WOMANHOOD a great deal. By a hundred tokens, delightful vase paintings, noble monuments, poetic myths, tribute is paid to the self-mastery, the self-forgetfulness, the courage, the gentleness "of the wives and mothers who have made Athens the beacon of Hellas"; and there is one witness better than all the rest. Along the "Street of Tombs," by the gate of the city, runs the long row of stele (funeral monuments), inimitable and chaste ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... leap, Because their love of Earth is deep, And they are warriors in accord With life to serve, and pass reward, So touching purest and so heard In the brain's reflex of yon bird: Wherefore their soul in me or mine, Through self-forgetfulness divine, In them, that song aloft maintains To fill the sky and thrill the plains With showerings drawn from human stores, As he to silence nearer soars, Extends the world at wings and dome, More ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... observed, I contrived at length to roll it from my plate into my mouchoir, which I had placed on my knees purposely for its reception; the next minute all was safely lodged in my pocket. Conversing with the object of my affections, during the evening, in a state of nervous forgetfulness, I drew forth my handkerchief, and in a superb flourish, out flew the GIZZARD! Good heavens! my fair one stared, coloured, laughed; I was petrified; away flew my ecstatic dreams; and out of the house I flung myself without one 'au revoir,' but with a consciousness of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... recovered, and prepared supper. There was no reconciliation, at least on her side. She was not capable of reconciliation. Her temper exhausted itself gradually. With her the storm never broke up nobly and with magnificent forgetfulness into clear spaces of azure, with the singing of birds and with hot sunshine turning into diamonds every remaining drop of the deluge which had threatened ruin; the change was always rather to a uniformly obscured sky and a cold drizzle ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... but the unreasoning suggestions of girlish romance, too carelessly indifferent to the exigencies of poverty and diverse nationality; and that, if he had ever returned to claim her, mutual explanation and forgetfulness could have been their only proper course. There was, therefore, nothing for which she could reproach herself, or for which he could justly blame her, were he to recognize her as ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... pervaded all around at Streatham. His visits, which, heretofore, had seemed galas to Mrs. Thrale, were now begun and ended almost without notice: and all others,—Dr. Johnson not excepted,—were cast into the same gulph of general neglect, or forgetfulness;—all,—save singly this Memorialist!—to whom, the fatal secret once acknowledged, Mrs. Thrale clung for comfort; though she saw, and generously pardoned, how wide ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... aim is, and to what extent we are seeking an interpretation of mythology. It is not our purpose to explain every detail of every ancient legend, either as a distorted historical fact or as the result of this or that confusion of thought caused by forgetfulness of the meanings of language, or in any other way; nay, we must constantly protest against the excursions of too venturesome ingenuity. Myth is so ancient, so complex, so full of elements, that it is vain ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... tear out my living heart which in the watches of the night is ever doomed to grow again within my woman's breast, I was plunged into petty troubles of the flesh, aye and welcomed them because their irk at times gave me forgetfulness. When the savage dwellers in this land came to know that a mighty one had arisen among them who was the servant of the Lady of the Moon, those of them who still worshipped their goddess Lulala, gathered themselves ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... first advert to the forgetfulness of the man who really invented the machine that was capable of the opposite action of both dynamo and motor. This was the Italian, Pacinotti. [Footnote: Moses G. Farmer, an American, and celebrated ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... Carnot has noticed this untruth, and attributes it to mere forgetfulness. We leave it to him to reconcile his very charitable supposition with what he elsewhere says of the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... knew Bob would do as he said, I laid my head down, and was soon once more in forgetfulness. It was not daylight. When I again awoke, and found Cross snoring in the chair by the bedside; poor fellow, he had never lain down since he came on shore, when the captain was first taken ill. I felt much better, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... those whose mistaken zeal and wild conduct were most mischievous, that the Suffrage sentiment gathered head. Their lack of judgment in defying the opinions of their own sex, as well as of the other, their wrapt forgetfulness of proprieties, which incited mobs and proved a fine tool for the frenzy of so-called social reformers, brought contempt upon womanhood as well as upon the cause they advocated. Women, in the churches and out, were the strength of the Anti-slavery movement; but not these ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... is why I love you, so there's another reason! It isn't only your strength, Ben, it is, I believe, still more your self-forgetfulness. Then you forgot yourself because you thought of the poor horse; and again, do you remember the day of Aunt Matoaca's death, when you gave her your arm and took her little flag in your hand? You would have marched all the ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... is as calm as Nature's care; She doth not weep with us; yet none the less Her quiet fingers weave forgetfulness,— We fall asleep in peace when she ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... divine beauty and diviner joy. Mnemosyne, that guardian angel of the soul, brought from her treasure-house gifts of laughter and tears; the laughter sweet with singing, and the bitterness of the tears eternally lost in the Water of Forgetfulness. ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... "champignon" of Papeete, but naively declared that Opeta was still full of fight, and challenged the universe. The Raratonga man was dumfounded at the result of his forgetfulness, and gazed coldly and accusingly at the red plaits. The people, too, now regretted their enthusiasm for the right, which had shortened their program of rounds, and demanded that the battle go on. But the band ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... force and energy of purpose, his self-forgetfulness and power of endurance, his consuming zeal and devotion of his whole faculties to his work, his tender sympathy and ardent love of souls, together with his admirable judgment and prudence, made him a born ...
— The Organization of the Congregation in the Early Lutheran Churches in America • Beale M. Schmucker
... for this forgetfulness, and there was the Dane gazing into the flames, and seeming heedless of all that was going on. Nor do I think that I had ever seen one look so sad as looked that homeless man, as he forgot the busy talk and movement around him in some ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... than those in front—a necessary procedure, for we were rather inclined at times "to keep our noses too near the grindstone," or perhaps, like Othello, to be "led by the nose as asses are," and to toil up the hills with the wilderness before us, in total forgetfulness of the lovely scenes behind. We therefore advise all tourists on a walking expedition to look back occasionally, since much of the pleasure and beauty of the tour ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... one. It is true, she had a weight of care upon her heart, even heavier than usual, but the burden had overcome her strength: wearied out with hopes, with fears, and, at the end, with disappointment and rage, she sunk at once into a deep slumber. But the more forgetfulness had then prevailed, the more powerful was the force of remembrance when she awoke. At first, so sound her sleep had been, that she had a difficulty in calling to mind why she was unhappy; but that she was unhappy she well recollected—when ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... the first time at Mrs. Taylor's house at a function given in honor of a Right Honorable Nobody from Essex. The Right Honorable has gone down into the dust of forgetfulness, his very name lost to us, like unto that of the man who fired the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... of the room; all but Fareham, who watched Lady Castlemaine as she stood by the hearth in an attitude of hopeless self-forgetfulness, leaning against the lofty sculptured chimney-piece, one slender foot in gold-embroidered slipper and transparent stocking poised on the brazen fender, and her proud eyelids lowered as if there was nothing in this world worth looking at but the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... is so charmingly ugly," laughed the young wife, tripping out in utter forgetfulness that she was to die if she went near the beasts again. She met Peregrine half way across the ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... promises of fairyland this daylight world teems, And sleep comes with forgetfulness or fraught with lovely dreams; And there is magic in the touch, and music in the sigh, And, far more eloquent than speech, a language ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... This forgetfulness, or perhaps ignorance, on his part, completely disconcerted me; and not wishing to inform against myself, I held my tongue, hoping that some unforeseen chance might yet favour my escape. But the next moment, observing his choler to be rapidly on the ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... interesting; but, if the representation be a poetical one, more than this is demanded. It is demanded, not only that it shall interest, but also that it shall inspirit and rejoice the reader: that it shall convey a charm, and infuse delight. For the Muses, as Hesiod says, were born that they might be 'a forgetfulness of evils, and a truce from cares'; and it is not enough that the Poet should add to the knowledge of men, it is required of him also that he should add to their happiness. 'All Art', says Schiller, 'is dedicated to Joy, and there is no higher ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... Occasion, be in a Singular manner affected with the Warnings of God! Lord, May those of our dear Brethren be Saved from the Temptations which do so threaten them! so ruine them! Oh! let them not Abandon themselves to Profanity, to Swearing, to Cursing, to Drinking, to Leudness, to a cursed Forgetfulness of their Maker, and of the End for which He made them! Oh! Let them not be abandoned of God, unto those Courses that will hasten them to a Damnation that slumbers not. Oh! Let the men fear the Lord Exceedingly, We ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... think?—a woman who staggered a little, and had some words with the policeman at the corner: but, after all, a staggering woman in London is no such memorable sight. All day long she was seeking work, work, work; and after dark she sought forgetfulness. She found the one, in small quantities, and out of it she managed to buy the other, now and then, over the counter. But she had long given up looking for the fairies. The lights along the Embankment had ceased to remind her ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... clerk went to find the shawl, and mounted Madame Euphrasia's staircase; and as (literally) the devil was in him, he did not come down for twelve days, drowning the thought of hell and of his privileges in twelve days of love and riot and forgetfulness, for which he had bartered away all his hopes of a paradise ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... passages in "Philander," "Narcissa," and "Lucia," there is hardly a trace of human sympathy, of self-forgetfulness in the joy or sorrow of a fellow-being, throughout this long poem, which professes to treat the various phases of man's destiny. And even in the "Narcissa" Night, Young repels us by the low moral tone of his exaggerated ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... accepting a light, to acknowledge the courtesy by a half military salute. In the corner the calf will moan, and we, now half asleep, will stretch out our weary limbs, draw our coats and blankets over us, and to the murmur of the now subdued conversation, find forgetfulness in ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... fathom the essential conditions of processes like dream building. It will be probably a surprise to hear that neither the state of sleep nor illness is among the indispensable conditions. A whole number of phenomena of the everyday life of healthy persons, forgetfulness, slips in speaking and in holding things, together with a certain class of mistakes, are due to a psychical mechanism analogous to that of the dream and the ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... the day, when the hamlet is still, And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove; When nought, but the torrent, is heard on the hill; And nought, but the, nightingale's song, in the grove; 'Twas then, by the cave of the fountain afar; A hermit his song of the night thus began; No more with himself, or with nature at war, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... in awe, saying, 'He's inspired, Bootlbac! 'tis the triumph of Shagpat he drummeth.' They feigned to listen to him till their ears deceived them, and they rejoiced in the velocity of the soundless tune of Bootlbac the drum-beater, and were stirred by it, excited to a forgetfulness of their fasting. Such was the force of the inspiration of Bootlbac the drum-beater, caused by the burning of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... by retrospection we can bring ourselves to believe in this obvious truth. The young and untried heart hugs itself in the bitterness of its emotions, and takes a pride in believing that its anguish can end but with its existence; and it is not till time hath almost steeped our senses in forgetfulness that we discover the ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... the channel as I write—an unceasing boom! boom! boom! That's what takes the stuff out of me and gets my inside machinery wrong. Still, I'm gradually getting even that back to normal. Golf and the poets are fine medicine. I read Keats the other day, with entire forgetfulness of the guns. Here we have a comfortable house, our own servants (as many as we need), a beautiful calm sea, a perfect air and for the present ideal weather. There's nobody down here but Scottish soldiers. We've struck up a pleasant acquaintance with them; ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... enterprise of war, he calmly counts the chances whether or not he can compel his feeble body to bear him on till the work is done. A frame so delicately strung could not have been insensible to danger; but forgetfulness of self, and the absorption of every faculty in the object before him, shut out the sense of fear. He seems always to have been at his best in the thick of battle; most complete in his mastery over himself ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... correct herself: but the heart laboured. Yet she seemed to have no thought in her mind; she had no active sensation of pity or startled self-love. She went to smooth Mr. Pole's pillow, as to a place of forgetfulness. The querulous tyrannies of the invalid relieved her; but the heavy lifting of her chest returned the moment she was alone. She mentioned it to the doctor, who prescribed for liver, informing her that the said organ ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he. "If a man stole my dinner I might let him run; but if he stole my horse, he and I and death would play hide-and-seek! We need forgetfulness, not angry memories, behind us! Keep thou ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... take place before you return to France." To which Grammont answered, "True, my dear friend; what a memory I have! I quite forgot that I was to marry your sister; but I will instantly accompany you back to London and rectify that forgetfulness." His celebrated Memoirs were written by his brother-in-law, Anthony, generally called Count Hamilton, who followed the fortunes of James the Second, and afterwards entered ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... perceive in almost every psychologist a tell-tale inclination for delightful intercourse with commonplace and well-ordered men; the fact is thereby disclosed that he always requires healing, that he needs a sort of flight and forgetfulness, away from what his insight and incisiveness—from what his "business"—has laid upon his conscience. The fear of his memory is peculiar to him. He is easily silenced by the judgment of others; he hears with unmoved countenance how people honour, ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... gradually becoming used to the fact of each other's company in such a solitude. What were the woes and cryings of the outer world to them, lost in the impenetrable silence of that retreat? A strange, double sensation of delight and forgetfulness surged in them both. All knowledge of disturbing human influences, of the fret, and discord, and inquietude of common existence seemed trivial and even false. They looked with confidence into each other's eyes, ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... lesson of forgetfulness, and forget all that troubles you, deprives you of sound sleep, and writes wrinkles on your forehead. Wang Yang Ming, at the age of seventeen or so, is said to have forgotten the day 'on which he ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... Sir, for my stupidity or forgetfulness about Hogarth's poetry, which I still am not sure I ever heard, though I knew him so well; but it is an additional argument for my distrusting myself, if my memory fails, which is very possible. A whole volume of Richardson's[1] poetry has been ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... widows are left, each seeking to sacrifice herself for the other. Who shall decide which was the more noble and truly womanly in her self-forgetfulness,—the elder, sadder heart, which strove to secure for the other some joy and fellowship at the price of its own deepened solitude; or the younger, which steeled itself against entreaties, and cast away friends and country for love's ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... a dead sin—and against such, exorcism avails. I opine this exorcism lies in no cabalistic words, no crossing of the forehead, no holy name, in nothing that one can do unto or for himself, but in entire self-forgetfulness—in doing for, in sympathizing with, others. So shall this Grief step aside from your path, get away from between you and the sunshine, till finally it shall ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... department, for which previous preparation is made. It consists of ten thousand little disconnected items, which can never be so systematically arranged that there is no daily jostling somewhere. And in the best-regulated families, it is not unfrequently the case that some act of forgetfulness or carelessness, from some member, will disarrange the business of the whole day, so that every hour will bring renewed occasion for annoyance. And the more strongly a woman realizes the value of time, and the importance of ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... 'Gentlemen, and at this time my judges, as to the indictment by which I stand of several crimes accused before you, pray attribute my forgetfulness to mine age, and not to my wilfulness; to the craziness of my brain, and not to the carelessness of my mind; and then I hope I may be by your charity excused from great punishment, though I ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... Hearing; but if my heart abhor it heard Being insubmissive, hold me not thy wife But use me like a stranger, whom thine hand Hath fed by chance and finding thence no thanks Flung off for shame's sake to forgetfulness. 270 ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... beauty and bounty, hidden from the world, but known to God. Self-forgetfulness, 15:27 purity, and affection are constant prayers. Practice not profession, understanding not belief, gain the ear and right hand of omnipotence and 15:30 they assuredly call down infinite blessings. Trustworthi- ness ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... said. "You give one with a perpetual and intense freshness feelings and sensations that are as old as the world itself, and you imagine that your enchantment can be broken off anywhere, at any time! But it can't be broken. And forgetfulness, like everything else, can only come from you. It's an impossible ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... liberal acceptance of life as it is lived, and honest contempt of leering hypocrisies, would have done more, at this juncture, to put healthy tone into Alma's being than any change of scene and of atmosphere, any medicament or well-meant summons to forgetfulness. Like the majority of good and thoughtful men, he could not weigh his female companion in the balance he found good enough for mortals of his own sex. With a little obtuseness to the 'finer' feelings, a little native coarseness in his habits towards women, he would have ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... fact, however, the pretty senora was quite accustomed to discomfort in varying degrees, and gave less thought to the weather than did the more tenderly sheltered women of the valley, so that no harm came of the forgetfulness; especially since the storm fell far short of Gustavo's expectations and caused that particular prophet the inconvenience of searching his soul and the heavens for an explanation of the sunshine that reprehensibly bathed the valley next day ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... acknowledged your kind present earlier, but that unknown something, which was never yet discovered, though so often speculated upon, which stands in the way of lazy folks answering letters, has presented its usual obstacle. It is not forgetfulness, nor disrespect, nor incivility, but terribly ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... time the above lessons had been well burnt into my brain, beyond all chance of forgetfulness, a strange thing happened—I had a ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... brought out in strong relief the beauty and nobility of character in both Violet and her mother. They proved themselves the most devoted of nurses, patient, cheerful, hopeful, never giving way to despondency, or wearying in efforts to relieve the little sufferers or wile them into forgetfulness ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... gratitude for this man who had held her in his arms, forgave all the suffering he had caused her, to remember only moments of happiness they had passed together. Then, as time went on and month followed month, covering all her grief and reminiscences with forgetfulness, she devoted herself entirely to ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... it. In this he set an example followed by most of the more thoughtful religious travellers since his time. Very significant is it to see the New Testament injunction, "Remember Lot's wife," so utterly forgotten. These later investigators seem never to have heard of it; and this constant forgetfulness shows the change which had taken place in the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... impartially and eagerly did he make himself a voice of the evil as well as the good in human nature that occasionally one has heard people speculating as to whether he can have led so reputable a life as the biographers make one believe. To speculate in this manner, however, is to blunder into forgetfulness of Browning's own answer, in How it Strikes a Contemporary, to all such ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... to Clem's wife; she laid hold, as I have said, upon heaven. The thought wrought in her something more than forgetfulness of pain or the expectation of counterpoising bliss. We can understand what this something was, for although we know no such heaven as hers, a new temper is imparted to us, a new spirit breathed into us; I was about to say a new hope bestowed upon us, when we consider that ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... conception of the subtle and indirect motions of imagination and feeling. His influence on me was great, and opposed to the natural unfolding of my character, which was fervent, of strong grasp, and disposed to infatuation, and self-forgetfulness. He made the common prose world so present to me, that my natural bias was controlled. I did not go mad, as many would do, at being continually roused from my dreams. I had too much strength to be crushed,—and since I must put on the fetters, could not submit to let them impede my motions. ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... had made the little shelter of leaves, facing the river, and built a fire in front. But to-night he could not win forgetfulness. ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... a raw and backward spring, he caught cold, and increased it by walking out in the rain and, through forgetfulness, omitting to put on his over-coat. He had a hoarse cold for a few days, and on the morning of April 19 I found him a little feverish, so went to see him next day. He was asleep on his study sofa, and when he awoke he proved to be more feverish and a little ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... edge of the circle listening, the rugged face in the centre of it would break into a smile, or some boyish speaker would elicit the low spontaneous laugh in which there was such a sound of human fellowship, such a genuine note of self-forgetfulness. Sometimes the conversation strayed into politics, and then Mr. Grey, an eager politician, would throw back his head, and talk with more sparkle and rapidity, flashing occasionally into grim humour which seemed to throw light on the innate ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... tusks of a wild boar,—his sword piercing the old man instead of the beast, (a deed decreed by fate,)—he finds the lovely nymph ready to console him. She presents him with a draught from the magic well, which instantly brings him forgetfulness of the past (compare Nibelung's-ring).—The Count drinks it, and immediately glowing with love for the beautiful maiden wooes her as his wife. Melusine consents to the union under the condition that he pledges himself ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... part will be the best excuse. As for me, I promise you entire forgetfulness, and the pardon which you ...
— Study of a Woman • Honore de Balzac
... he had poured to intoxicate himself, but all in vain. Neither wine nor blood gave him peace and forgetfulness. Ah, he could win no forgetfulness, that sweet unconsciousness of the soul, but instead came memory, the ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... Clifton! Nay I am deceived if encroachment be not reduced to system with him; and, strong as her powers are, impossible as I know it to be to shake her principles, yet, who can say what may happen, in a moment of forgetfulness, or mistake, to a heart so ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... have behaved insolently enough. Safe in their knowledge of Charles's inclinations, they laughed in their sleeves at his commission. Their best answer would have been to have pressed the anti-impositionists with their utter forgetfulness of the possible, nay, very probable differences of opinion between the ministers and their congregations. A vain minister might disgust a sober congregation with his 'extempore' prayers, or his open contempt of their kneeling at the Sacrament, and the like. Yet by what right if he acts ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... lowest abyss of evil, or rises to the highest degree of virtue and glory. In the sin of Eve the first degree was a certain intemperance of language, which led her to reply to the insidious questions of the devil; in appearance this forgetfulness was very slight. To answer a question, give an explanation requested of you, clear up a doubt, render an account of a precept of the Lord, seem at first sight something natural and permitted. It is quite easy to be deceived in this matter. We readily convince ourselves that we are actuated by ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... the deck of the vessel, bathed in hot tears, and a deep swoon soon cast its veil of forgetfulness over ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... one who, in his calmer hours, was ready to confess them. "Your temptation and mine," he writes to his brother Alexander, "is a tendency to imperiousness and indignant self-help; and, if no wise theoretical, yet, practical forgetfulness and tyrannical contempt of other men." His nicknaming mania was the inheritance of a family failing, always fostered by the mocking-bird at his side. Humour, doubtless, ought to discount many of his criticisms. Dean Stanley, in his funeral sermon, ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... having totally forgotten the poor fellow—the contrast between this forgetfulness and the anxiety and contrition of the two preceding nights, actually surprised Ormond: he could hardly believe that he was one and the same person. Then came excuses to himself: "Gratitude— common civility—the peremptoriness of King Corny—his passionate temper, when opposed on this ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... indeed struck the key note to Miss Anthony's strongest characteristic, utter forgetfulness of self, total self-abnegation, self-sacrifice without a consciousness that it was such. Mrs. Hooker's statement that she "had come in at the death" shows the strong faith of most of these early workers that it would be only a brief time until the rights they claimed would be recognized ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... in Black's excellent Guide to Manchester that before Mrs. Gaskell's celebrity the fitful fame of De Quincey shed a backward gleam upon his native place, which can still show the house where he was probably born and the grammar-school he certainly ran away from. In my forgetfulness, or my ignorance, that Manchester was the mother of this tricksy master-spirit of English prose, who was an idol of my youth, I failed to visit either house. The renown of Cobden and of Bright is precious to a larger world than mine; and the name of the stalwart Quaker friend of man is dear ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... hear the inward Word of God. He often calls Plato and Plotinus and "Hermes Trismegistus" his teachers, who "had spoken to him more clearly than Moses did"[13] and, like these Greek teachers of the nature of the soul's furnishings, he insisted that we come "not in entire forgetfulness and not in utter nakedness," but that there is a divine element, an innermost essence in us, in the very structure of the soul, which is the starting-point of all spiritual progress, the mark of man's dignity, ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... don't think you have any self-conceit, but you may have a good deal of self-forgetfulness. Now I want you to call a halt and remember yourself. In this business of yours—supposing it comes to what you would consider at the ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... this was a matter of no little difficulty, for the late events of his life had tended very considerably to weaken an intellect that was never remarkable for strength; and so he sat, and relapsed into a dozy state, where forgetfulness, for the most part, presided. At times, it is true, he would wake up, and the old fire lighting in his eyes, he would dash his paw on the ground as he observed the prison-walls close around him; but the feeling was momentary, and it was evident that the indulgence of his evil passions ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... but the moment that he has done all that seems possible, the soul tells the mind to throw off the burden for the time; and, casting away all thought of the matter, he lays himself down comfortably to sleep and forgetfulness. The other, however, in whose bosom some more deep interest exists, pursues the object also by every means that can be suggested; but when all is done, and the mind is wearied, the soul does not suffer the intellect to repose, but, ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... to think your friendship for me should harden or embitter you, Peggy," Eagle said. "Nothing is worth that! I oughtn't to talk to you as I've been talking now. I shan't again. Forgive me, and forget. Help me to forget! Forgetfulness is the best thing that can happen to me now. I realize that in my sensible moments. But it's hard to ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... determine to punish the Starving Cardinal, I believe he will get a good year's notice to prepare for his doom. You perceive? What harm does sudden death to a man? It is nothing. A moment of pain; and you have all the happiness of sleep, indifference, forgetfulness. That is no punishment at all: ...
— Sunrise • William Black |
